Friday, August 16, 2013

They're back! That wacky band of Parisian bon vivants has returned to our fair city to put on another food festival, Omnivore Montreal 2013, and, once again, they've not only tapped many of Montreal's best chefs, they've brought along a whole bunch of talented friends as well.

fig. b: maudit barbu!

Participants in their tag-team-style Maudits Soupers include such vedettes culinaires as Jeremiah Langhorne of Charleston's legendary McCrady's (tonight! with Derek Dammann!! at Maison Publique!!!).

And, once again, the Société des arts technologiques' Foodlab is right at the centre of the action. The SAT is where all of Omnivore's cooking demos will be taking place (in the tripped-out confines of the SATosphere, their multimedia dome). The SAT is where Saturday night's Omnivorious bash will be held. And the Foodlab will be the site of the festival's closing night Maudit Souper on Monday: a collaboration between Michelle & Seth, and Nicolas Darnauguilhelm of Brussels' highly acclaimed Neptune.

fig. c: buchty, mmm...., buchty!

Both Michelle and Seth will be giving demos this weekend, with Michelle's covering the use of cheese in desserts (including her remarkable farmer's cheese- and fruit-filled buchty,* which you can see pictured above, fresh out of the oven). You can catch Michelle's demo on Saturday, at 3:40 p.m.,** while Seth's will take place on Sunday at 12:20. Demos run from 11:00 a.m.-1:30 p.m. and 3:00 p.m.-5:30 p.m. on both Saturday and Sunday.

Omnivores of Montreal, unite!

aj

* If you haven't had the pleasure, buchty are traditional Czech yeasted buns that are stuffed with fruit or cheese, and sometimes (as in this case) both.

Monday, August 12, 2013

Liz Clayton is a world-renowned coffee expert and a hardcore coffee lover. She also writes, knits, loves cats, plays pinball, takes a lot of photographs, and travels extensively, sometimes in the company of a rock 'n' roll band or two.

She's just published her first book, and it documents (in photographs and words) an international coffee odyssey that took her as far east as Nordic Europe (Iceland, Denmark), and back and forth across the United States and Canada, from Boston to San Diego and Victoria to Atlanta.

fig. b: odyssey

And all in the space of a single year (!).

The photographs capture recommended coffee establishments in all of the far-flung cities, towns, and regions Clayton visited (Reykjavik! Santa Cruz! Oklahoma City!), as well as intimate portraits of fellow coffee enthusiasts in their abodes, either fixing up a cup of coffee, or fixing to enjoy one. Together with the text, they provide some sense of the scale of the Third Wave Coffee International (at least the roasting, brewing, enjoying aspects of the industry), as well as some sense of the surprisingly mellow, well-adjusted, and good-natured people who inhabit this highly caffeinated scene.

fig. c: 415

You might be asking yourself if Ms. Clayton made more than a token effort to cover Canada as part of her survey, and the answer would be, "Yes! Clayton is something of a Canadianophile and Canadian cities are covered in some detail."* In fact, Clayton visited favourite cafés in Victoria, Vancouver, Toronto, and Montreal.

You might also be asking yourself what the test kitchen at "...an endless banquet" looks like, as well as what method Michelle uses on those rare occasions when she brews a cup of coffee in it. (Seems highly unlikely that such questions would be crossing your mind, but you never know.)

fig. d: 514

Luckily for you, all you have to do is pick up a copy of Nice Coffee Time to find out, because Michelle is featured right above a photograph of Café Myriade (natch!), and right next to an account of Clayton's adventures in the Montreal-Boston corridor.

Is Michelle an example of "the surprisingly mellow, good-natured people who inhabit this highly caffeinated scene"? Why, yes, she is. As long as she gets her morning fix.

You can find Nice Coffee Time in select coffee shops and bookstores now, as well as on Amazon soon. It brings new meaning to the phrase "coffee table book."

Audrey was regularly featured on "...an endless banquet" right from the start, and with good reason: she was a darling girl and a true superstar. You can find two of our favourite Audrey-related posts here and here.

aj

note: none of them ever are, really, but, as you may have guessed already, this special edition Top Ten list (#50!) is definitely not in any particular order--eds.

Judith Herman and Marguerite Shalett Herman, The Cornucopia, Being a Kitchen Entertainment and Cookbook Containing Good Reading and Good Cookery From More Than 500 Years of Recipes, Food Lore &c. as Conceived and Expounded by the Great Chefs & Gourmets of the Old and New Worlds Between the Years 1390 and 1899 Now Compiled and Presented to the Public in a Single Handsome and Convenient Volume